Like many Australian soldiers who have served large parts of their careers between the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s and the deployments to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq since the end of the 1990s, I have not participated in a combined arms assault. The long years during which the Army was confined to continental defence resulted in a dichotomy between our doctrinal theory and military practice. Since the adoption by the Army of a maritime concept of strategy, there has been considerable effort to understand the requirements of combined arms warfare. In the absence of experience, we have employed historical studies and experimentation based on data from World War II and from Vietnam. he Army’s study of military history and the use of experiments have been focused particularly on the Asia-Pacific region. This is an area in which the combination of political instability, a littoral environment and complex terrain provides an extraordinary operational challenge.
In the island archipelagoes to our north there are various operational scenarios: civil unrest in Papua New Guinea, chaos in the Solomons, a potential military uprising in Fiji, and the possibility of Islamist guerrillas using training bases on island ‘failed states’. As soldiers what should concern us in examining these possible scenarios is one common requirement: our need to be skilled in the art of combined arms warfare. Whether we are facing a company of regular troops with heavy machine-guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades; a band of militiamen with small arms; or guerrillas and terrorists with a mix of weapons, we will require combined arms to deal with them successfully. In our immediate region the terrain is complex due to the combination of jungle vegetation and intensive urbanisation.
In operations in complex terrain against an enemy who has dug in or who is holding a vital position, the requirement will always be for a carefully mounted combined arms assault—something that the Australian Army has not practically undertaken since the Vietnam War thirty years ago. Not surprisingly, some officials of the Defence Department believe that technology now permits stand-off attack in a manner that precludes the use of expensive armoured vehicles in offensive operations. Such a view is incorrect and will ultimately lead to unnecessary deaths. Any assault based only on a combination of precision weapons and light infantry risks unacceptable casualties among the latter. Because casualties have become a critical political vulnerability for any Western army, professional soldiers are expected to carry an assault with a minimum of losses.
For both political and tactical reasons, an assault on any well-entrenched ground opponent requires a mixture of mounted and dismounted troops supported by direct and indirect fires—in short, we require the combined arms team. Combined arms teams first emerged in their modern form on the Western Front in 1917-18 during World War I. For example, British empire forces, including a hard-core of Australians, used a combination of artillery, infantry and tanks to win the battle of Amiens in August 1918. In World War II, combined arms warfare, not infantry or armoured operations in isolation, gave the Allied forces victory on the ground in 1944-45.
In Vietnam, Australian troops frequently employed combined arms operations against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese bunker positions. Despite the coming of precision-guided munitions and smart-bomb technology, the requirement for a combined arms approach to warfare in the 21st century has not changed. If Australian forces are confronted with bunkers or entrenched positions in a littoral environment, missiles and lightly armed infantry will not be sufficient to neutralise such positions without incurring significant casualties. Clearing fortified positions that are composed of defenders with automatic weapons is a combination activity. Dismounted and mounted troops—infantry sections and tanks—work together in such operations. The infantry act as the eyes and ears for armour while the latter provide the overmatching firepower required to provide cover for the assault on enemy positions.
Combined arms operations demand close team-work between infantry section commanders and tank commanders, particularly during the break-in and the initial fight-through phases. In the break-in phase, supporting direct and indirect fire by armour allows infantry to go forward. In particular, direct fire from the assaulting tanks and infantry combat vehicles is essential and should continue right up to the forward edge of any contested position. In complex terrain, indirect fire may become difficult to employ. The much-lauded ‘sensor-to-shooter’ linkages that require identification and designation of targets are difficult to achieve in complex terrain. Unlike in desert conditions, under a jungle canopy, visibility can be severely reduced. If a force stumbles into a firefight or ambush, then the effects of indirect fire will almost certainly be drastically diminished.
Added to jungle conditions there is also the challenge in littoral operations of fighting in built-up areas (FIBUA) using disengaged fires. The Australian Defence Force lacks experience in providing indirect fire support—whether from helicopters, field guns, or aircraft—in an assault in complex terrain. Suppressive fire using disengaged systems may not be effective in thick vegetation when distances become short, and engagement ranges even shorter. A ground force may therefore be compelled to mount an assault and a fight-through almost immediately, and without the benefit of indirect firepower.
Currently, the Army pays this problem insufficient regard in its doctrine. Most of our assumptions about the theory and practice of assault reflect a belief that any enemy will be obliging in his dispositions. For instance, there is a widespread assumption that an enemy will use emplaced obstacles leading to engagement areas that exploit the maximum range of his weapons. Yet it is perfectly possible that an enemy force would hug difficult and close terrain, whether in thick vegetation or in urban areas—two features that are abundant in our region. In northern Australia, the average observation range is some 200-400 metres in distance—a range not dissimilar from that which Australian troops encountered in East Timor, especially around the capital of Dili. At such a short distance one cannot simply employ stand-off fire; it is necessary to close on the enemy’s position. Yet a distance of between 200 and 400 metres is still a long way for the infantry to traverse during an assault. The vast majority of infantry weapons are most effective well inside the range of 200 metres. It is this deadly gap—a ‘zone of death’—that presents the most difficult problem in assault operations in complex terrain. The gap is too close for an attacker to apply mounted offensive support and yet it is also too far for a dismounted assault to be undertaken by troops.
If, in complex terrain, disengaged offensive support is not as effective as it is in open terrain, how then can the Australian Army increase its firepower in such operations? How can the Army deliver sufficient weight of effective but discriminating fires that allow infantry sections to close towards the enemy’s position? Clearly, such fires must overmatch those of the enemy, but at the same time avoid posing the threat of fratricide or ‘friendly fire’ to our own soldiers. One solution would be to equip Australian infantry with heavier weapons for bunker busting. There is, however, a clearly set limit to how far a soldier can be burdened with equipment before the individual collapses from physical exhaustion. Another approach is to improve the direct fire that can be delivered from cannon and guns mounted on armoured vehicles. These vehicles can carry protected fire forward; they can discriminate in their targeting; and are immediately responsive to any form of threat. Moreover, armoured vehicles are capable of overmatching the enemy through the weight of their fires. If, in complex terrain, the Australian Army cannot rely on disengaged weapons systems to deliver an effective volume of fires and if our infantrymen cannot carry more weapons, then the Army must increase the effects from our armoured vehicles during an assault.
Since the late 1990s, the Army has investigated the use of armoured firepower in operations in difficult terrain. In particular, it has analysed the campaigns in Bougainville, New Guinea and Borneo during World War II and also in Vietnam between 1966 and 1973. The military history of these conflicts provided valuable insights into how to mount assaults in complex terrain and to conduct manoeuvre operations in a littoral environment. The Army’s analysts at the Land Warfare Development Centre discovered that there were significant problems in both World War II and in Vietnam in making indirect fire effective. The data also demonstrated the difficulty of moving infantry forward when they were pinned down by fire coming from concealed bunkers. Operations in Vietnam showed how tanks were often employed with the infantry in such operations. Armoured vehicles would provide the infantry sections with the necessary supporting fire for a successful advance. A significant lesson that emerged from the analysis of military history was that, if one can move tanks forward and protect them in complex terrain, then their volume of fire nearly always carried the assault to a successful conclusion.
Moving to contemporary operations, then, it is clear that in the break-in battle the key to success lies in achieving forward fire supremacy. If indirect fire cannot dominate in complex terrain, then our armoured vehicles must provide the requisite direct fire. In any future assault, Australian troops must advance and close with the enemy as quickly as possible. They must survive the delivery of fires as they cross the short engagement area, and overwhelm the enemy’s defensive positions. The Army’s armoured vehicles remain the only current weapon system with which to gain a decisive overmatch in firepower as infantry engage in the close fight with an enemy. In this respect, the Army must rely on medium-weight tanks rather than light armoured vehicles. The M113 remains an agile vehicle, but its firepower and armour are weak and its current upgrade is long overdue. Similarly, the Australian Light Armoured Vehicle (ASLAV) might be able to perform in some situations, but like the M113 it can take very little punishment and is at its best scouting and screening. In all key respects, the current Australian cavalry force is a light force designed and trained for shaping and protection missions in warfighting operations. The Australian Army will then have to rely on its medium Leopard tanks to move infantry forward in the combined arms assault—supported, in time, by the new armed reconnaissance helicopters.
Our present-day infantry need to appreciate the demands of their role in the combined arms assault. Until troops close with the enemy, they are the eyes and ears of the tank force. It is the tank, not the infantryman, that is the true killer in combined arms warfare. The task of the infantry is to identify targets for tank fire. he further from the enemy the infantry are, the less they can accomplish. At the same time, the further away from the enemy the tanks are, the more damage they can inflict with their guns without considering the welfare of friendly troops. As both parts of the combined arms team move to within effective small-arms range (perhaps 100 metres) so the infantry will become far more capable of discriminating in their choice of targets and of delivering effective fire. At this point, as the combined arms team fights its way through the enemy position, the infantry sections assume the tactical initiative by directing all fire and movement.
In operations in complex terrain, the aim should be to allow the tanks to set the tempo of the engagement. The achievement of close coordination between infantry and armour only occurs with careful preparation. Such preparation demands excellent communications, continuous training and refined tactical doctrine between mounted and dismounted troops. In the Australian Army, doctrine in the assault needs refreshing. On the one hand, the Army’s conventional doctrine remains largely based on operations through terrain that features rolling hills and maximum engagement ranges. On the other hand, unconventional or light doctrine seems to be based more on fleeting contacts with irregulars. These opposing tactical concepts need to become integrated into a modern operational doctrine for combined arms assault. It is imperative that the Australian Army learns to become expert at combined arms operations in complex terrain and to extrapolate this expertise to include operations in urban areas. In the latter days of the Vietnam War, the Army developed considerable expertise in this area. Yet it was not captured in subsequent doctrine or in lessons learnt, and we have been forced to recover it through historical analysis.
Despite changes in technology and the typology of conflict, in land warfare objectives can often only be achieved by means of a combined arms assault. This type of tactical activity may be part of a broader large-unit campaign such as we are witnessing in the second Gulf War of 2003, or it may be an isolated action in a peace enforcement operation such as East Timor. No modern army can afford to neglect the art of the combined arms assault in a world where globalisation permits the proliferation of vast numbers of automatic weapons. Any well-armed force—whether professional soldiers, paramilitary militia, terrorists or guerrillas—can fortify a building or entrench a position and present a highly difficult defensive problem to an attacker. For this very reason, tanks have much life left in them. We should remember that combined arms teams, including tanks and infantry, were first developed to overcome entrenched positions on the Western Front in 1918. This requirement still remains even in the age of precision weapons. The great tank armies of World War II and of Cold War Europe may have disappeared into history, but the tank, as an integral part of the combined arms team, remains an enduring symbol of modern combat.
